These days, everyone seems to have a slow cooker to make life easier. But guess what? There’s a simpler, less expensive alternative that’s been helping rural people cook food and conserve fuel for at least 200 years!

According to Wikipedia, a haybox is a “…cooker that utilizes the heat of the food being cooked to complete the cooking process. Food items to be cooked are heated to the boiling point, and then insulated. Over a period of time, the food items cook by the heat captured in the insulated container.” Haybox cookery (sometimes called “thermal cookery”) may well be the original “slow food” as it takes about 3x longer to cook the food than when using direct heat, but as long as you’re not in a hurry, it’s an excellent way to conserve energy – up to 80% according to some sources.

First thought to have been practiced by Norwegian peasants and “officially” appearing in publications in the early 19th century, hayboxes were used in WWI and WWII in England to conserve rationed cooking fuel, and were also promoted by the US government during the Great Depression. Fast forward to the 21st century, where the concept is still used by hikers and campers, who heat up food in the morning and then store the heated pot in a sleeping bag or backpack through the day, to provide a hot meal in the evening. True today as in the 1800s, the haybox method saves fuel and labor. No food is overcooked, or burnt. No nourishment is lost. The resulting flavor is exquisite!

There are several books available on the subject, but my favorite is Haybox Cookery by Eleanour Sinclair Bohde, published by George Routledge and Sons, Ltd, London in 1939. Even though this book is out of print and somewhat difficult to find), I recommend getting a copy if you can, because it gives detailed information and is an excellent place to get started. Topics covered:

How to Make a Haybox

For Those on the Lief and Hay Diets.

Advantages.

General Rules for Using a Haybox.

Care of Haybox.

Soups.

Fish.

Vegetables.

Cereals.

Fruits.

An Index.

If you’re interested in trying haybox cooking, and can’t find Haybox Cookery, there is a wealth of information online, including the following:

One note: When using any thermal cooking method, you need to be careful to maintain a high enough temperature to prevent the growth of dangerous bacteria. If the temperature of the food drops below 140°F (60 °C) for any length of time, you risk food poisoning. Therefore, a) it’s important to make sure the food is truly boiling when you place it in the thermal cooker so it stays good and hot and b) it’s best to use a thermometer to make sure the food stays at a safe temperature. There are several digital cooking thermometers with remote sensors that can be used to monitor the temperature of the food in your haybox cooker without opening the lid – a quick internet search will show you several options.

Grab a box, some hay, a covered pot, and your favorite ingredients and start exploring a whole new exciting, delicious, resource-conserving world!

In the 1980s, Ron Whitehurst of ACRES U.S.A. wrote: “Central Florida is being mined down sea level for phosphate clay; and spiraling natural gas prices are making synthetic nitrogen fertilizer exorbitantly priced. Even using all the solid and liquid wastes from the cities, there isn’t enough nutrient value to keep America growing. The answer is to use particular legumes and fast-growing plants as green manure to be turned into the soil to enrich it. This is growing fertilizer and soil conditioners in place; right where they are needed in the field.”

30 years later, Ron’s concerns are still valid, and more urgent than ever: we are seeing peak phosphorus, farm bankruptcies, agricultural pollution from chemical fertilizers and sewage sludge, farm resource shortages, and most dangerous to our food security, a massive decline in the fertility of our soils. And the solution is still the same: we need to regenerate and maintain our soils by growing our fertilizers and soil conditioners right in the field, in a closed-loop system.

Edwin McLeod’s Feed the Soil is a practical volume on nitrogen fixing “green manure” crops to provide an alternative to the increasing costs and environmental damage of chemical fertilizers and is beyond a treasure trove for sustainable farmers and gardeners. In 1982, my good friend and amazing seedsman Lorenz A. Schaller (The Kusa Seed Research Foundation) wrote the following review of the book in East West Journal – I can’t improve on it, so I’m including it whole:

“Feed the Soil is a unique instruction text and resource guide for the practical work needed to lay a foundation for a new order of agriculture on earth. One central premise agreed to by all factions of the organic-growing movement is the necessity to ‘feed the soil’. In turn the soil feeds the plants. This single fact is the most basic and essential key for understanding and practicing natural fertility plant culture. How this approach functions and the benefits it bestows are given in an outstandingly clear and readable manner by Edwin McLeod.Feed the Soil can be used as a resource to understand how natural agriculture works and as a guide to putting this understanding into practice. It serves with equal reward anyone interested in increasing their understanding of soil fertility, gardening, or the farming arts.”

Chapters and other key topics include:

Soil Diet — Plant Health

Cultivated Plant Weed Competitors (p. 70)

Legume Cross-Inoculation Groups and their Rhizobium Species (pp. 78-79)

The Soil-Climate Key for Selection of Legumes

A wonderful Species Description chapter with 129 crops that can assist you in building soil

An extensive Common Name/Latin Name Plant List

References

An Index

Though this publication in great part emphasizes the use of “green manure” Ecology Action and its biologically-intensive GROW BIOINTENSIVE method utilizes a combination of composting and inter-planting with legumes instead. The reason being that when green manuring plants that have high levels of readily available nitrogen are turned into the soil, the nitrogen seeks out carbon in the soil and breaks it down to C02— reducing the soil’s precious organic matter levels and releasing that carbon into the atmosphere. But the topics in Feed the Soil are still just as useful – the varieties described can be used with the interplanting and composting method instead of green-manuring.

Excitingly, Feed the Soil describes key little-known soil-building legumes and other crops, as well as enhanced descriptions of well-known ones.

Fertile soil is priceless. Growing it is easy – if you do it right. Feed the Soil (plus the GB method) will help you find the right varieties to put nitrogen and organic matter back into your garden. Give it a try!

John Jeavons was featured in an interview on biologically intensive gardening and farming.
“While planning my trip to the Heirloom Expo I contacted some of the world’s top garden experts for interviews, and when John Jeavons of GROW BIOINTENSIVE responded to my email inquiry with a date and time to meet, I jumped out of my chair. What luck!” – Christy, Author at Gardenerd

Each year around this time, following months of freezing cold and heavy rain, Northern California experiences a “false spring” – the sun shines, the temperature is balmy and pleasant, and the grey and wintry landscape is suddenly covered in a bright green veil as the hardy early risers begin to sprout and come awake. It’s not really spring – we’ve got months of cold weather to come – but this is the preview, and the whole world seems bursting at the seams with life. Riotous, juicy, joyful. What could be better?

Well… if you look at the “gardening” aisle of a random box store with the row upon row of poisons and growth inhibitors, you may get the impression that “better” means doing things that limit this juicy exuberance without delay and regardless of the consequences. The industry built around the production and sale of pesticides and herbicides emphasizes an aggressive approach that seeks to “help” nature by killing off the “undesirables” and appeals to an all too popular “person against the world” mythology. This isn’t my imagination – There is a commercial that uses an old-west gunfight theme to sell weed killer! It won’t surprise you that this paradigm doesn’t appeal to me. Having worked for decades to develop farming methods that work in harmony with nature and its life forces – with excellent and productive results! – I believe that we can all benefit from cultivating (literally) a more sensitive and integrative perspective of our place (and our food- and soil-growing place) within the whole and balanced natural system.

Gardening for Health and Nutrition—An introduction to the Method of Biodynamic Gardening by John & Helen Philbrick is one of my favorite books in terms of building this sensitivity and perspective! It introduces gardeners to a fact that is often strangely overlooked in modern farming: that gardening is about living things and the life force that runs through us all. In the book, John Philbrick “… talks about how each morning he was in the habit of visiting his garden at sunrise, meditating and communing, until, gradually, he realized that the important things at work were ‘the forces of life’—‘that life is the key to existence on this planet!’”

The Philbricks realized that most gardeners were concerned not with life and growing things, but with death, and getting rid of things—bugs, weeds, fungi—and that this focus was obscuring the fact that nature is a whole fabric, and that all the threads that make it are interconnected and vital to its (and our) functioning:

“…everything that is alive is dependent upon everything else that’s alive…which are constantly changing…To be healthy, this network of living things must be kept in balance. The gardener must become aware of the network of processes making up the garden and must become familiar with the particularities of the soil, the seasons, and the plants and animals there. Then on this foundation, working with nature, one can make one’s garden a living organism.”

While all the practices and techniques shared in this wonderful publication (it is a garden planning guide for beginners using the biodynamic method) are not the GROW BIOINTENSIVE ones we use, the feeling communicated is enlivening, and I think any farmer or gardener will benefit from reading it. The book is a treasure!

This month (December 2018) a commentary piece, Put More Carbon in Soils to Meet Paris Climate Pledges, was published in the journal Nature. It was written by scientists specializing in climate change and agriculture who serve on the science and technical committee of the organization 4 per 1000 (4p1000.org) – an organization dedicated to demonstrating that agriculture, and in particular, agricultural soils, can play a crucial role where food security and climate change are concerned. In the article, they outline how using carbon sequestration to build soil organic matter can mitigate climate change and boost soil fertility. The scientists suggest that the KJWA (a UNFCCC initiative directing the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) to jointly consider how to tackle agriculture issues in the context of climate change) formally commit to increasing global soil organic carbon stocks through coordination and activities related to eight steps.

As anyone who knows me will tell you, the situation of “Peak Farmable Soil” is one I have been aware of and vocal about for a long time. And while I can’t say I’m glad that what I’ve been worried about for so long is true, I’m relieved that finally, the world’s soil and agricultural scientists and policy makers seem to be awakening to the grave threat – and the huge opportunity! – the cumulative effects of soil depletion and climate change represent to agriculture and food security.

The quantity of carbon stored in our global soils is over 2 times the amount stored in all the trees and other biomass on the planet. This is good. It means that we can store huge amounts of carbon in our agricultural soils if we know how to work with nature to do so. Currently, however, that’s not the case: conventional farming and development has already degraded over a third of the world’s soils, limiting agricultural production and, rather than storing carbon, adding almost 500 gigatons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere—an amount equivalent to burning 216 billion hectares of U.S. forest.

This is a lot to process. But keep reading, there’s hope!

In a nutshell:

There is an urgent need to incorporate more CO2 into our soils in the form of fertile soil organic matter (SOM) to pull carbon out of the air and help stop climate change.

So how do we do it? I was hoping you’d ask. Ecology Action’s Closed-Loop Sustainable GROW BIOINTENSIVE food- and soil-growing system offers practical methods for gardeners and farmers around the globe to be part of the solution! GB has been proven to grow soil organic matter (SOM) over 60 times faster than in nature. We have already shown that for each pound of food eaten, GB can grow up to 20 pounds of farmable soil. A recent preliminary study shows that, for properly maintained GB growing beds, it may be possible to sequester up to 5 metric tons (5.5 US tons) of carbon from the atmosphere, per hectare (2.5 acres) per year.

Extrapolating from this study, if the world’s agricultural soils (~80% of which are farms of 1-2 hectares) were cultivated using GB to accumulate carbon at this rate, in ~31 years, it could be possible to bring atmospheric carbon dioxide levels down to 350ppm, a significant, and life-saving reduction compared to the damaging 408 ppm of CO2 causing global warming and climate change today. (read more about GB and Climate Change here.)

It’s not a complete solution, and we need to do more work to see if the levels of carbon sequestration can me maintained at the level suggested by the study, but it’s a very good start, based on low-tech methods and universal scientific principles that we can all use right now! In combination with other climate change mitigation, it might just do the trick.

Not sure it’s really possible to build soil fertility faster than nature? Look at the chart below on GB Soil Fertility I use in my teaching: in only 8.5 years, we took the soil at the Common Ground Garden at The Jeavons Center from essentially unproductive to flourishing SOM levels that would have taken over 500 years to achieve naturally. You can see the lower levels of pale, depleted soil that would barely grow scrub merge upwards into the dark, carbon-rich soil that grows an abundance of crops each year. This is carbon sequestration in action. This is what the world needs more of, NOW.

Want to be a part of the solution? Put in a GROW BIOINTENSIVE bed. Then, put in another. Keep going. Maintain the beds properly with rich GB compost that you make on-site from the residues of your carefully chosen diet crops – get that carbon in the soil! And enjoy the veggies, fruits, grains, fertile soil, and climate change mitigation you harvest. Who knew fighting global warming could be delicious?

Do you want to give up your commute, grow organic food, live and work in a rural community in harmony with nature, and help solve our climate, hunger, and sustainability issues with a group of like-minded people? Well, Ecology Action may be the place for you to put down roots!

We’re looking for stable people eager to make a long-term commitment (at least 5 years) to work as year-round Biointensive Farmers starting in 2019 at two separate biointensive research and demonstration mini-farms in Mendocino County, CA: our headquarters at The Jeavons Center (TJC) site near the town of Willits, and our Victory Gardens for Peace (VGfP) site near the town of Mendocino.

At TJC: $250 rent per month provides a large private bedroom in beautiful, clean, recently renovated, 2-story off-grid yurt with shared common space (kitchen, living, dining, 2 baths) for staff and interns. Includes water, power, heating, gas, and garbage. Rural, but a 20-minute drive accesses stores, restaurants, theatres, and community events. Also includesgarden space and training to grow food (vegetables, fruits, and grains) in one of oldest continuously operating sustainable research and demonstration gardens on the planet (note: you are responsible for buying any food you need that is not grown on-site).

At VGfP: Private bedroom with shared staff bathroom, two communal gourmet vegan meals per day, free on-site laundry, utilities, furniture, bedding TV and internet are provided for staff farmers. No staff garden space or kitchen available (shared indoor kitchenette area and outdoor camp-stove for staff). Located at an eco-resort, 15-minute walk to the vacation destination town of Mendocino with shops, restaurants, community events etc. Access to public resort spaces at no cost and to onsite yoga, tai chi, acupuncture, and massage at own cost outside of working hours.

A world-class education in the closed-loop GROW BIOINTENSIVE Sustainable Mini-Farming Method used by millions of farmers globally;

The opportunity to meet and work with lots of interesting people from across the country and around the world, all practicing and teaching sustainable, regenerative, organic agriculture.

The Job: Ecology Action is a non-profit organization focused on sustainable agriculture research and education. As a farmer, you will work closely with Ecology Action staff, mini-farm managers, apprentices, interns, and members of the public participating in farm tours and workshops. Farmer tasks and responsibilities include garden planning, bed preparation, planting, composting, weeding, watering, harvesting, data collection and record keeping. Additional tasks include teaching and outreach (you will receive training in biologically-intensive farming and teaching methods to prepare you for these activities).

Please note: our research and demonstration sites focus on the GROW BIOINTENSIVE method; no other farming methods may be practiced on site by staff farmers. No animal husbandry, hunting, or fishing occurs at these sites. TJC is vegetarian (no meat or fish products on site) and VGfP is 100% vegan (only plant-based food products allowed on site).

A thanksgiving tradition at dinner tables across the country is to ask each person “What are you thankful for?” It’s an interesting question, because it is so vitally linked with the other fundamental questions we all ask ourselves in one way or another:

In my experience, it really does provide a quantum level jump in your transformational development – providing a path to answer those questions in a satisfying way. It’s something I am thankful for in my life, and so I wanted to share it with you all.

The book cover says “Claudia integrates various modalities, visualizations, energy modulations and meditations, nutritional consulting, herbs and supplements in naturopathic consultations to assist you to live a life in Vital Balance in body, mind and emotions…to live this precious life in health and joy.” …which seems like a lot, but actually, it’s a series of steps in a process that, taken together, can provide a “quantum leap” in one’s spirit and self. The experiential result sometimes seems miraculous.

Chapters include:

The Action Plan

The Mirror Technique

Notice the Tone of Your Voice

Stations on the Road to Self-Discovery

About Vibrational Healing

Intense Emotions

Listening to your Body

Filling Up Your Heath Space

The 7-Fold Approach to Relationships

Acknowledging the Energy Field

Use the “Vital Balance Wheel” to develop a practical action plan for your own quantum-level transformation that you can easily grow with! You will be excitingly surprised by the “Crystal Intention Techniques”. Your optimal growth also has to do with learning how to feel fully.

The process is ongoing and exciting. I have experienced the results from several consultations with Claudia, and remember wondering later, “How did the change happen?”… sometimes it was a few days later, yet the new perception just appeared and made everything more wonderful —even when working in challenging situations.

Surprisingly, we are each very powerful in accomplishing what we wish to proactively create. It all depends on what your intention is! This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: “If you want to predict the future, create it!”

As you seek the answers to becoming your best self you in this world, I encourage you to experiment with Quantum Level Transformation; if your experience is anything like mine, you will begin to welcome new possibilities!

Wishing you an enjoyable journey and much to be thankful for.
Happy Thanksgiving!

As harvest season draws to a close, it’s time to preserve the bounty. And what better way to do it than with the time-honored method of fermentation? With the earliest known examples of fermented foods appearing in the Fertile Crescent over 8,000 years ago, it seems that wherever you go around the globe, every culture has its own…um…culturing tradition. Beer, wine, sourdough bread, cheese, chocolate, sauerkraut, coffee and yogurt are just a few of the well-known examples, but the truth is, almost any food can be preserved by the process known as lacto-fermentation or “pickling”. Lucky for us, extending the harvest this way is delicious, so our ancestors perfected the process, not knowing that they were teaming up with important beneficial microbes to increase the nutrition, digestibility, and vitamin levels of the foods they preserved, as well as giving anyone who ate them a stronger immune system.

Over time, as heavily processed, chemically preserved foods became popular, traditional fermentation practices faded to the background. Pickles were made with vinegar and canned foods replaced cultured ones. And in the process, we lost an important ally in our pursuit of health and happiness: the billions of beneficial bacteria that fermented foods had provided humans for thousands of years. Did you know that 2 ounces of lacto-fermented sauerkraut has more probiotics than a bottle of 100 count probiotic capsules? It’s true!

Thankfully, people are starting to understand the value and flavor of fermented foods again, and the shelves of health-food (and some mainstream) markets are brimming with formerly exotic items like kimchi, tempeh, kefir, kombucha and kvass.

(FYI: The best kombucha I have ever tasted —ever — is made by IT’S ALIVE KOMBUCHA in Bayside, CA between Eureka and Arcata. We’re in luck — it’s available in flavors like Pear Apple, Cactus Berry, Electric Lemon and more. Try some. You’ll love it.)

It’s nice to be able to buy these foods, but why stop there?

Fermentation is easy (and inexpensive!) to do at home, and Mary Karlin’s book Mastering Fermentation—Recipes for Making and Cooking with Fermented Foodsis by far one of my favorite how-to manuals to recommend to beginners and fermentation buffs alike. Beginners don’t be scared! As you master fermentation with this book, you’ll experience a good spectrum of delicious and doable recipes! Mary goes broad and deep in the mysterious, magical practical topic. Kiri Fisher, the Owner of The Cheese School of San Francisco notes about this book, its author and fermentation, “Ordinary foods—vegetables, milk, juice, tomatoes, tea—are transformed by it into the most extraordinary pickles, cheeses, vinegars, ketchups and kombuchas….Mary Karlin is the sorceress and this is her book of culinary spells.” I couldn’t say it better.

Look at the topics covered and tell me you don’t want to try at least one recipe. Or five.

I wanted to keep you in the loop about Ecology Action’s upcoming workshop, and hope you will share this message with friends, family, and like-minded gardeners who could benefit from learning the GB method:

GROW BIOINTENSIVE is the original regenerative, sustainable agriculture, rooted in heritage farm-craft and proven with science. Together with Ecology Action farm staff, I’ll share the skills grown over 46 years of developing, using and teaching this wonderfully productive system.

In just 3 days, you’ll learn how to use up to 66% less water, up to 94% less energy, and grow soil up to 60 times faster than nature – all while increasing your garden yields—plus much more.

Whether you’re a backyard gardener or a market farmer, this workshop will build your skills, just in time to go into winter and prepare for spring. Come, have fun, and learn How to Grow More Vegetables (and other crops) than you ever thought possible, on less land, and with less water than you can imagine!